Product Description
Ninth Annual Report Of The Bureau Of Ethnology. ... Read more

Product Description
Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description

GrenvilleGoodwin, who kept extensive diaries on his expedition, died of abrain tumor in 1940, at the age of 33. His filmmaker son, NeilGoodwin, reproduces excepts from those diaries here, adding anaccount of his own travels along his father's trail. The combineddocument is a fascinating, if inconclusive, exercise in scholarlydetective work, rich in ethnographic information about a people thathas since disappeared. Joining such books as DavidRoberts's Once TheyMoved Like the Wind and Eve Ball'sIn the Days ofVictorio, The Diaries offers a noteworthy addition tothe popular literature on Apache culture. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A vivid, original, fascinating and informative work.
To read The Apache Diaries by Grenville (1907-40) and son Neil Goodwin is to enter a portal to another dimension.Through a dialogue of contemporary and historic diaries and related photographs,a vivid landscape haunted by blood, pain, fear, suffering, passion, and ancient enmities emerges.Inthis world all tales are entwined by tones of sorrow, loss, and arelentless quest for the understanding and peace of the dead.There isalso fascination, pride, and great heroism.The plight of the Sierra MadreApaches intrigues the youthful Grennie, destined to become a singular ifshort-lived ethnographer who partially chronicles their ambiguous fate. That unfinished life task is taken up by his son Neil in the research andwriting of The Apache Diaries.In an effort to reach out and perhaps eventouch the father who died when he was only two months old, the authorrecreates the journeys made by his father when he wrote the original diaryentries in the 1930's.The Apache Diaries is,as intended, adialogue built between Neil and Grennie in an exploration of the dualenigmas of the nature of the man himself and the mysterious fate of theSierra Madre Apaches he studied.It is as though Neil, the son,hopes touncover a mirror experience of both the true life essence of his father andtheinconclusive, mysterious fate of the "wild" Sierra MadreApaches.It is fitting that he is joined in his quest by his wife, son and his son's future wife.The Apache Diaries is a classic quest riddle,filled with real unquenchable anguish and courage mixed with evil andcowardice.It is bitterly poignant.True to life, it never resolvescompletely; but there is a partial lifting of the veil.The key toexperiencing this strangely compelling, haunted world of the blood- feudingMexicans' and Apaches' history is, perhaps, acceptance of the pain andwrong, the incredible wrenching anguish that is called forthagain andagain.But there is a second step that is as yet unfinished.One quicklylearns to guess at an outline of forgiveness, perhaps ? a future resolutionthat still may loom yet several generations away.The deaths and thekidnappings are so brutal and vivid.Though Grenville Goodwin was arespected ethnographer and Neil Goodwin is an accomplished film-maker ofNative American documentaries, the reader does not need to be fluent ineither medium to appreciate the depth and complexity of The Apache Diaries. It resonates in the heart.It breaks the heart.Perhaps it remakes theheart, or the heart's vision.This is a profoundly moving book.Perhapsthe book reflects the spirit of the crown dance of the Chiricahua, a holyritual Neil witnesses in 1987 when he accompanies two grandsons of one ofGeronimo's warriors on a commemorative visit to the location of Geronimo'snear surrender to General Crook:

Later during that trip theChiricahuas conducted their holiest of rituals, the spellbinding crowndance.It begins with an immense leaping bonfire.There is a line ofdrummers and chanters.Shockingly, out of the darkness, come the dancers. They circle the fire wearing masks with high, antlerlike crowns, shortkilts, painted bodies, a thousand tiny bells, a sword in each hand - theyreel, hover, sway, and as they do, they become the mountain gods.Theassembled Apaches are witnessing the first crown dance held in thesemountains for a very long time.It is at long last a dance for thepeaceless dead, and it is overdue by a hundred years or more. (page236)

Nancy Lorraine Reviewer ... Read more

Product Description
Plains Apache Ethnobotony is the most comprehensive ethnobotanical study of a southern plains tribe.Handsomely illustrated, this book is a valuable resource for ethnobotanists, anthropologists, historians, and anyone interested in American Indian use of native plants. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Important research finally published
Julia Jordan studied the ethnobotany of the Kiowa-Apache tribe in Oklahoma while a student at the University of Oklahoma.She established a remarkable rapport with the tribal members, mostly the women.This enabled her to learn from the actual practitioners the ways in which they remembered fast-dissapearing uses for the endemic plants. This kind of research is seldom published, but 40 years later, it is the only research of this kind in existence.The book was brought up to date on plant names and locations, and is also well-written and a pleasure to read.

The Apache's abiding connection with wild plants is exhaustively documented through fieldwork and interviews
Research anthropologist Julia A. Jordan presents Plains Apache Ethnobotany, an in-depth study and reference of how the Plains Apache native people of North America used more than 110 plant species in food, medicine, and rituals, and material culture. Traditionally a hunter-gathering tribe that engaged in trade with its neighbors, the Apache's abiding connection with wild plants is exhaustively documented through fieldwork and interviews conducted with elders of the Oklahoma Apache Tribe in the mid-1960s. The text is studious yet accessible to readers of all backgrounds. A handful of black-and-white photographs illustrate this thoroughly comprehensive reference and resource, highly recommended for ethnobotany and Apache tribe Native American studies collections.
... Read more

Product Description
When the Apache wars ended in the late nineteenth century, a harsh and harrowing time began for the Western Apache people. Living under the authority of nervous Indian agents, pitiless government-school officials, and menacing mounted police, they knew that resistance to American authority would be foolish. But some Apache families did resist in the most basic way they could: they resolved to endure. Although Apache history has inspired numerous works by non-Indian authors, Apache people themselves have been reluctant to comment at length on their own past. Eva Tulene Watt, born in 1913, now shares the story of her family from the time of the Apache wars to the modern era. Her narrative presents a view of history that differs fundamentally from conventional approaches, which have almost nothing to say about the daily lives of Apache men and women, their values and social practices, and the singular abilities that enabled them to survive. In a voice that is spare, factual, and unflinchingly direct, Mrs. Watt reveals how the Western Apaches carried on in the face of poverty, hardship, and disease. Her interpretation of her people’s past is a diverse assemblage of recounted events, biographical sketches, and cultural descriptions that bring to life a vanished time and the men and women who lived it to the fullest. We share her and her family’s travels and troubles. We learn how the Apache people struggled daily to find work, shelter, food, health, laughter, solace, and everything else that people in any community seek.Richly illustrated with more than 50 photographs, Don’t Let the Sun Step Over You is a rare and remarkable book that affords a view of the past that few have seen before—a wholly Apache view, unsettling yet uplifting, which weighs upon the mind and educates the heart. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A part of my family history
I first found this book in a bookstore in Pinetop, AZ. I picked it up because it sounded interesting. Later I found out, from my grandparents that Eva was a distant relative to me. She mentions her uncles, one of them is John Lupe; my great-great grandfather. I loved this book and was completely taken in by her stories. This book has become a treasure to me and the rest of my family's members.

Awesome....
What was awesome about the book was the history...the places she talks about the storis she told. As a member of the White Mountain Apache living in Indiana with my four boys it made them proud of their heritage and as each of them read out loud the look on each of their faces as Eva describes places on the reservation they knew the exact place she was talking about. Their great grandma who is still alive in Whiteriver use to tell them a lot of similiar stories Eva talks about, the Soldiers in Fort Apache, and just life in general in the early 1900's seeing it in print just made the experience of reading the book as a family was just awesome!! as my 6 year old stated when we asked if he liked the book. ... Read more

Product Description
This remarkable book introduces us to four unforgettable Apache people, each of whom offers a different take on the significance of places in their culture. Apache conceptions of wisdom, manners and morals, and of their own history are inextricably intertwined with place, and by allowing us to overhear his conversations with Apaches on these subjects Basso expands our awareness of what place can mean to people.

Most of us use the term sense of place often and rather carelessly when we think of nature or home or literature. Our senses of place, however, come not only from our individual experiences but also from our cultures. Wisdom Sits in Places, the first sustained study of places and place-names by an anthropologist, explores place, places, and what they mean to a particular group of people, the Western Apache in Arizona. For more than thirty years, Keith Basso has been doing fieldwork among the Western Apache, and now he shares with us what he has learned of Apache place-names—where they come from and what they mean to Apaches.

"This is indeed a brilliant exposition of landscape and language in the world of the Western Apache. But it is more than that. Keith Basso gives us to understand something about the sacred and indivisible nature of words and place. And this is a universal equation, a balance in the universe. Place may be the first of all concepts; it may be the oldest of all words."—N. Scott Momaday

"In Wisdom Sits in Places Keith Basso lifts a veil on the most elemental poetry of human experience, which is the naming of the world. In so doing he invests his scholarship with that rarest of scholarly qualities: a sense of spiritual exploration. Through his clear eyes we glimpse the spirit of a remarkable people and their land, and when we look away, we see our own world afresh."—William deBuys

"A very exciting book—authoritative, fully informed, extremely thoughtful, and also engagingly written and a joy to read. Guiding us vividly among the landscapes and related story-tellings of the Western Apache, Basso explores in a highly readable way the role of language in the complex but compelling theme of a people's attachment to place. An important book by an eminent scholar."—Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Good condition
The book arrived as advertised, with minimal folding and some notes inside (all in pencil though).

Interesting, but too wordy
It was indeed fascinating to learn about the Western Apache's way of communicating and relations to the land in relevance with their history and story telling. Once the author involves characters interactions in his book, there is much information to learn and the read is enjoyable.

But then he goes on to his own analytical interpretations that can take up to 14 pages over just one sentence. And it is not any new information either. He tends to repeat himself, or explain his previously written and expressed ideas in a more expanded or renewed analysis.

For example, in chapter 3 he shared a coded conversation between three women. He interrupted them with scholarly reports and findings that circled over a same point for most of the chapter. And only by the end of the chapter he finally interpreted, decoded and explained the conversation between the three women.

As a student in Organizational Communication, my professors cannot stress enough that the most important aspect of writing, is to put out your ideas clearly and readable, without making the sentences too wordy or cluttered with technical phrases.

As I was reading this book, I couldn't help but think that it would be a shame if Western Apache people would not have been able to read this book due to its complex language. It is in fact their first historical account. According to the author, not too many Western Apaches have been as literate in the "ways of the white men". So why write a book about them, which they would not even been able to read?

Overall, I'm glad this book was written. It brought out the culture of Western Apaches in an extremely interesting light. Their wisdom and their life style very well surpasses many aspects of a common "white man". For instance, once I read this book, I no longer viewed Native American's respect for nature as some New Age obsession. It really made sense to me why it is important to respect the land. For one, people don't seem to realize that the land and us are connected and intertwined in my areas. Our society is more concerned about saving time and gas to go grocery shopping, so we build dozens of supermarkets and stores like Walmart on every corner, without any thought behind concerning the importance of the land and its story. So the book helps to understand the importance of human relations to objects, nature and places. Why it is important to keep cultures alive and how to respect more traditionally oriented ones.

Wisdom Sits in Places: a brief review
In this book, Keith Basso presents the Western Apache at Cibecue.His decades long interaction with these gentle, articulate people provides us with an intimate and respectful view of a powerful tradition among them:the invocation of place names to educate, elucidate, and even entertain.Place names are normally highly descriptive:one can easily identify and understand why a certain place has the name it does.But the real power of the place name is less in its description than in the anecdote accompanying the name.These anecdotes teach some important moral lesson.By merely invoking the name, the lesson is recalled and no one is directly humiliated, scolded, shamed.The lesson to be learned is played out by the characters in the story and hence depersonalized.In this gentle, non-threatening way, individuals are taught the important lessons of living successfully within the culture of the Western Apache.We would do well adopt this tradition into our own culture and begin training our children in ways that build up instead of ways that shame and tear down.

Fascinating, Interesting, and Quite Simply Amazing
There is nothing I can say that would do any justice as to how great this book is.It was everything you could possibly hope for in an ethnographic text.You learn a lot about a culture very different from ours and it is truly just fascinating!

Moral sites
What do people make of places?Basso's opening sentence is a good example of what the Apache call `letting one's mind have room'.As we read through the chapters of the book Basso continues to add layers to the meaning of this opening question.It allows us to reflect on various uses of the word `make'.We make sense of places by interpreting them.We make places intelligible by foregrounding them.We make use of places; as sign posts or land-marks through the use of descriptive naming.We make places or constitute them as sites or repositories of learning; we invest them as placeholders for morality tales or homilies.We make places vital; we invest them with agency, we enchant them, animate them, in the spirit of golems; we take a piece of earth and through magic or metaphysics we bring it alive, giving it a mission and a life of its own.

Wisdom sits in places.The Apache are a good example of virtue ethics.This is a theory of ethics, usually based on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which argues against an ethical universalism and in favor of a particularism.It foregoes the quest for nomothetic foundations and looks instead to the development of certain skills or character traits.Aristotle created a catalogue of areas of behavior or traits with a continuum of possible dispositions.The virtuous behavior was the means between the two extremes of each continuum.Thus the virtue of bravery was somewhere in the range between cowardice and foolhardiness or irrational voluntarism in the face of impossible odds or a meaningless risk.
Aristotle's concept of phronesis finds an interesting parallel in the Apache moral imagination.Phronesis is a meta-virtue; it is the ability to choose the right action for each particular event; the ability to find the virtuous means between vicious poles.It is the essential skill for particularism which is the theory that the right action, the correct moral choice is particular to each unique event.It is opposed to the universalist proposition that there are sets of moral propositions or codes that we can apply in a covering law model.Universalism holds that when two of our moral codes clash we resolve the dilemma by applying a meta-rule, most commonly a deontological (Kantian) or utilitarian proposition.
The Apache's sense of wisdom is a good example of a pragmatic ethics informed by a set of virtues that are learned and continually developed throughout their life's journey.In the first chapter we note how each speaker brings the homily (the moral lesson associated with a place name) forward, making it their own, fleshing it out.One imagines that each speaker and hearer of place names is expected to silently immerse themselves in each homily; making it real by seeing it happen.The act of giving vision to the oral narrative is a process of developing layers upon layers of particular exemplars of the lesson.It is thus internalized and carried forward for the next use.As one gains wisdom one becomes more proficient at seeing when and where to apply these lessons.
This is similar to the thought of the American pragmatist and logician, C. S. Peirce, who proposed a fallibilism about knowledge, truth, and scientific results.He felt that we were always discovering more and that a full statement of any putative universal law was always deferred.Peirce's original pragmatism differed from what James and Dewey later made of it.For Peirce we expanded our sense of a truth through a process of discovering layers upon layers of particular applications and gradually gaining more of an understanding of the wider truth.But his sense of fallibilism posited rich moral concepts such as justice or duty as essentially contested concepts.

We have maps in our heads.There are other interesting parallels with the ancient Greeks besides virtue ethics.There is a significant body of study regarding Plato's thought on the spoken and written word.Plato argued that reality resides in absolute and eternal forms.Thus the impressions available to our senses are imitations that is but a shadow of these eternal truths; they confuse us and should not be trusted.Worse still are the imitations of imitations; thus his polemics against poetry, art, and the written word.It would be interesting to combine this with the study of texts in the 20th century to look at the Apache's preference for maps in the head.Barthes, Derrida and others all expanded our notion of what can serve as texts and it might be interesting to look at Apache use of places through some of those lenses.
In addition there are interesting parallels with the sophists.Although Plato and Socrates succeeded in creating our contemporary disdain for sophism, recent work in the study of Isocrates and others brings a new appreciation of certain tenets of sophism.The sophists exhibited some similarities to the Apache notions of epistemology.They both saw the elders and ancestors as the source of wisdom and warrants for knowledge to be used for current problems.They both argued that the knowledge of the past resided less in universal laws than in practices of the ancestors; actual responses to past dilemmas that are best accessed through interpretation rather than a rote use of the covering law model or a slavish rehearsal of rigid and dogmatic rituals.
They both thought that knowledge (as justified true belief) was discovered and ultimately ratified and warranted by the voice of the majority; the interpretation that found the most general favor.The sophists proposed that vigorous debate in an open forum of citizens is the most epistemologically sound form of inquiry.Their best speakers would take both sides on various propositions of what the ancestors would have done in the current crisis.The goal was to make the best possible argument for all options and let the citizenry decide.
Both the ancient Greeks and the Apache continued to observe religious rituals but it would also be interesting to compare characteristics of their religious cosmology, the role of the gods, and their associations with natural entities and nature in general.
... Read more

Product Description
The corner of Arizona encompassing Aravaipa Canyon is known to the Western Apaches as Aravaipa, their sacred homeland.This book examines the connection between people and place to show how Aravaipa is intimately tied to Apache identity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Impressive scholarship and deeply moving
Mr. Record accurately describes one of the most important, but little-known events in all of American history.I do not exaggerate.He also movingly examines its impact, even to our times, on the families who survived the event.I personally have known some of the people he interviewed.The narratives they provided Mr. Record were accurately reported and sympathetically presented.I simply cannot praise this significant book highly enough.

Highly Recommended
I have read several accounts of the Camp Grant Massacre, this author by far is the most objective and well rounded.He provides great insight into the history of the Aravaipa Apaches and the San Carlos Reservation. It is an important book for anyone interested in Arizona History.

Excellent!A Must Read.
Just finished reading this fabulous book.I am no scholar or academic, but this book was a great read.

The author does a great job of balancing this book with a good narrative and an objective perspective.It's been a long time since I read something as compelling as Big Sycamore Stands Alone.Will be looking for more from this author in the near future.

Good, as far as it goes
This book is excellent to the degree it covers primarily one subject (Apache culture)related to the Camp Grant Massacre. Interestingly, three books on the massacre were published at about the same time. One is Shadows at Dawn and the other is titled simply The Camp Grant Massacre. The best way to get a grip on all the issues and people who contributed to the massacre is to read all three books. Each has something to offer that the others don't. As a person who was born and raised adjacent to the San Carlos Apache Reservation, I can relate to much of Sycamore's content. Unfortunately, that includes the rather glum demeanor of its prognosis regarding whether Apache youth will ever be able to recover/preserve vital aspects of their heritage.

Big Sycamore Stands Alone
I found Dr. Records' account gripping and well written.I am not well versed in Native American history so I was very happy to find that this account was easy to follow and not written like a "history" book.I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Southwestern Apache life and this event in particular. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (2)

One of the last explorers
A true gem of a book.The Norwegian,Mr.Ingstad, was one of the very last true explorers.He lived to be more than a hundred years and to the very last he stayed a true visionary.
Great book,great copy,thanks!!

The Apache Indians: In Search of the Missing Tribe
The Apache Indians: In Search of the Missing Tribe is the English version of Helge Ingstad's original book published in Norway in 1937. This edition features a preface by Benedicte Ingstad, Helge Ingstad daughter, and an introduction by Thomas J. Nevins, a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Virginia.

Helge Ingstad was lawyer turned adventurer and self-taught ethnographer and historian. While spending four years in the Great Slave Lake area with the Chipewyan, Instad chanced upon a native tale about a group of Chipewyan members that had left the group proper and never returned. It was suggested in these stories that this band of individuals had travelled south through modern Canada and the Plains of the United States to modern Arizona and had become the ancestors of the Apache.

Ingstad was so intrigued with this theory that when he got the opportunity to work alongside a group of White Mountain Apaches as a cowboy in 1936, he jumped at the chance. During his time with the Apache, Ingstad saw linguistic and cultural similarities indicated a strong interconnection between the Chipewyan and Apache. The presence of myths stating that the Apache had travelled from the north to their present location further substantiated Ingstad's hypothesis.

Nonetheless, Ingstad was quite disappointed at the lack of cultural continuity between the Apache and their ancestors. However, through listening to the stories of the White Mountain Apache, Ingstad had learned of the potential presence of another group of Apache that had travelled with the remnants of Geronimo's men into the Sierra Madres of Mexico. It was proposed that the resulting Sierra Madres Apache had strictly adhered to their traditional lifeways. Ingstad immediately made plans to seek out the Sierra Madres Apache.

The Apache Indians: In Search of the Missing Tribe details Ingstad's experiences with the White Mountain Apache and his subsequent attempts to locate the mysterious Sierra Madres Apache group. These experiences read more like an adventure story than an ethnographic document. Nonetheless, Ingstad did a wonderful job of describing and contrasting the life of the White Mountain Apache with their traditional Chipewyan origins. Moreover, Ingstad also illustrated a realistic and more balanced version of the noble savage and the barbaric primitive images so common during his time. That Ingstad actually lived with and worked alongside these individuals, probably account for his in-depth and realistic views of these people.

The entertaining nature of Ingstad's writing makes this book suitable for anyone interested in learning more about America's past. However, the information that Ingstad recorded contains some very important insight of use to researchers. This is especially true of the myths of the Chipewyan and Apache and also in the details Ingstad provides about the changing lifestyles of these individuals during the 1930's. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Info---Highly Recommended...
I loved this book.I found it concise and interesting and excellent for background info of the Apaches from ancient times to the early 1900s.

apche ways
I do not recommend this book. It is dull and confusing throughout. It has no start, end, or meaning, it just rambles on. I would recommend Indeh, a good book that would keep u interested and the stories are told in the Indian way. captivating from the first page to the last. ... Read more

Product Description
Most of the Native Americans left in the United States reside in the Southwest. This is the seventh printing (1984) of a book by Tom Bahti. Explore the culture of the Southwest Native Americans the way it was in the old west and the way it is now. This book is often used by some tribes as their authoritative guide. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The late Tom Bahti, a graduate in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico, started in the Indian arts business in 1949. He was nationally recognized as an authority on the arts, crafts, and culture of Southwestern Indians. He was also deeply involved in the future of the people of the Southwest. INDEX OF INDIAN TRIBES (included in this book): Acoma, Apache (Jicarilla, Mescalero, San Carlos, White Mountain), Chemehuevi, Cochiti, Colorado River Tribes (Cocopa, Mohave, Maricopa, Yuma), Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Nambe, Navajo, Paiute, Papago, Picuris, Pima, Pojoaque, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Sandia, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Taos, Tesuque, Ute, Yavapai, Yaqui, Zia, and Zuni. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Native Americans of the Southwest
A good student's and traveler's introduction to the native peoples of Arizona and New Mexico.Well illustrated with photos, maps and drawings, the text starts in earliest times, goes through European contact and concludes with sections on separate tribes.
Tom Bahti was a graduate of the Anthropology Department of the University of New Mexico and was for many years a dealer and collector of Indian art in his Tucson shop.He and his son workedto improve the welfare of Indians through self-help programs.Mr. Bahti is also the author of Southwestern Indian Arts and Crafts and Southwestern Indian Ceremonials.

Index of Indian Tribes
Acoma
Apache
Jicarilia
Mescalero
San Carolos
White Mountain
Chemehuevi
Cochiti
Colorado River Tribes
Cocopa
Mohave
Maricopa
Yuma
Havasupai
Hopi
Haualapai
Isleta
Jemez
Laguna
Nambe
Navajo
Pauite
Papago
Picuris
Pima
Pojoaque
San Felipe
San Ildefonso
San Juan
Sandia
Santa Ana
Santa Clara
Santo Domingo
Taos
Tesuque
Ute
Yavapai
Yaqui
Zia
Zuni ... Read more

Product Description
Kay Parker Schweinfurth's "Prayer on Top of the Earth: The Spiritual Universe of the Plains Apaches," offers numerous stories recounted by seven self-appointed tribal historians, the last surviving primary repositories of Apache history, born between 1876 and 1903. The Plains Apaches' mystical kinship with the land and the natural environment that the tribes perceived and nurtured is embodied in their four sacred medicine bundles-the no bikagseli, or "prayer on top of the earth." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Oklahoma Apache Nation, or Plains Apache's Spirituality
Miss Kay's book is so filled with information that I'll be re-reading it for times into the future. The people spoke a language of Athalpascan or Athabascan which has a variety of spellings, and it's language offspring are many children. The ethnic strain extended sometimes from Alaska down into Mexico, with many tribal names. They are the people whose stories appear in this book. The topics discussed by the author focus on the oral traditions of seven historians of the Oklahoma group. And some of their photos are eerily familiar.

I had originally found this through 'Good Minds' [dot etc.] which is a site for the Canadian Iroquois Nations specializing in Native American literature which is culturally sensitive to objectively include the Indian perspective on their own cultures. I wish they were an Amazon marketplace affiliate, since purchases are transacted through bank transfers and [with fees] converted to Canadian currency. Still, Amazon was able to sell me the book I wanted and at a very discount rate.

There's so much to learn in this book, I'd be remiss to focus on just the origins of Peyote religion for the Apache, or the Missionary influence on their culture. Though it's there for anyone who's interested in that. This book is the greatest collection of cultural legends for this tribe that I have ever seen. Their wisdom is intact, though speaking to and from aboriginal times.

Aboriginal tales:

One story of origins speaks of a continent full of ice storms which had not yet known the sun. The large animals hunted by the grand fathers had to be dug out of the ice and brought back to (geo-thermally) heated caves. There were large cracks in the earth with smoke coming out, and the people lived in caves. Another tale recounts, when man was first in the world, there were plants and animals but there was no sun. The sky was dark except for `very bright stars'. Those bright stars were lighting everything, like a cloudy day hiding the sun now'days.

I didn't recognize post-contact Biblical influence in Apache narratives. But they do put me in mind of a Biblical narrative which I consider to be pre-Edenic. Where Job chap. 38 says how the 'Sons of God' saw the stars created and shouted for joy. Other translations have them being, 'the Morning Stars' all sang together, [at the dawn of creation]. And that's just one more account which seems to focus on a time before the Eden legend.

The Native American mind among the very most remotely separate cultures has remembrance of twin boys who were influential upon the forming/ordering of the created world. I've seen variations on this theme from Agua Caliente Indians of California, from Tuscarora Iroquois of North Carolina, and now this plains group of Apache from Oklahoma, who called them 'Fire-boy' & 'Water-boy'.

Dr. K.P. Schweinfurth cites other sources who suggest it may be the most important theme in American Aboriginal Epochs.

When I read about Fire-boy & Water-boy here, I understood some imputed teachings which are connected to the spirituality in all things. a.) believe in your friend. b.) be contrary to any & everyone who tells you something is impossible. c.) educate yourself & collaborate with your fellow man as a team. d.) and finally, never underestimate the force of nature.

The number four is identified as a spiritual number for various reasons you can find in the book, but one associated teaching is how parents would forego disciplining their children for three times when they disobeyed, but the fourth time punishment came.

One more aspect of 'this' First-Nation's spirituality is their dance. It is a sort of community spirit.One dance society discussed in this work is called the `Manatidie'. Allusions to it's being a unifying instrument of their culture are numerous. 'Manatidie' means the 'black feet' dance. Although the dance was adapted from the Pawnee, and said to receive it's name from the Blackfoot tribe (proud feet), this is one of the dance societies perpetuated among the Oklahoma Apache. Someday I hope to witness Manatidie.
... Read more

Product Description
The Jicarilla Apache lived in what is now Northern New Mexico and Eastern Colorado. Their name means 'Little Baskets'. Along with the Navaho they were among the southernmost of the Athabascans. They are grouped with the Plains indians, due to their nomadic life and reliance on Buffalo hunting. However, a large portion of the Jicarilla occupied mountainous areas. The animated movie 'Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmarons', depicts the beautiful Jicarilla territory. ... Read more

Product Description
No introduction to Mrs. Langloh Parker's book can be more than that superfluous 'bush' which, according to the proverb, good wine does not need. Our knowledge of the life, manners, and customary laws of many Australian tribes has, in recent years, been vastly increased by the admirable works of Mr. Howitt, and of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. But Mrs. Parker treats of a tribe which, hitherto, has hardly been mentioned by anthropologists, and she has had unexampled opportunities of study. It is hardly possible for a scientific male observer to be intimately familiar with the women and children of a savage tribe. Mrs. Parker, on the other hand, has had, as regards the women and children of the Euahlayi, all the advantages of the squire's wife in a rural neighbourhood, supposing the squire's wife to be an intelligent and sympathetic lady, with a strong taste for the study of folklore and rustic custom. Among the Zulus, we know, it is the elder women who tell the popular tales, so carefully translated and edited by Bishop Colenso. Mrs. Parker has already published two volumes of Euahlayi tales, though I do not know that I have ever seen them cited, except by myself, in anthropological discussion. As they contain many beautiful and romantic touches, and references to the Euahlayi 'All Father,' or paternal 'super man,' Byamee, they may possibly have been regarded as dubious materials, dressed up for the European market. Mrs. Parker's new volume, I hope, will prove that she is a close scientific observer, who must be reckoned with by students. She has not scurried through the region occupied by her tribe, but has had them constantly under her eyes for a number of years.


Download The Euahlayi Tribe Now! ... Read more

Product Description
From the Spanish incursions of the mid-16th century through the conflicts with the Mexicans in the 18th and 19th centuries until the American-Indian wars of the late 19th century the Apaches remained in a constant state of war to defend their territory. Warriors such as Cochise and Geronimo struggled to maintain independence and to retain their culture in the face of overwhelming odds. This fascinating look at the life of the Apache not only covers their wartime activities but also looks at their culture, social structure and religion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fantastic!5 STARS!
Excellent illustrations, numerous photographs of apache weapons, warriors and people.Many of these photographs can not be found on the internet or in other books.This book is invaluable as a resource for studying the Apache of old.Like the other reviewer said, there are more books with a larger volume of history, but the pictures and color plates are well worth the price alone!

A North American Warrior Culture Revealed
Having spent some time growing up in the American Southwest, I had a passing familiarity with the Apaches.However, it was much later while I was serving in the U.S. Marine Corps that I became fascinated with these fierce warrior people.The Marines appreciated any warrior culture and part of our martial arts training included us studying famous warrior cultures, to include the Apache.Here was a nation that conducted a guerilla war (before the term was even invented) against the might of the American military for several decades before finally succumbing to disease, defeat and sedition.
This book is an excellent introduction to the Apache Warrior Culture.The diction is succint and to the point.The historic photographs are particulary fascinating as are the beautiful artisitic plates that exist in the text.If you are looking for an in depth study of the Apaches - particulary one that explores outside the subject of war - then I would look elsewhere.However, if you want a clear, concise and relevant first look into the Apache War Machine, then this book will not disappoint. ... Read more

Product Description
Songs of the Wing Dancer. Lou Cuevas has translated into written form the oral chants sung to him by his grandfather. These legends relate a mystical history of ancient times which impart a moral message as well as entertain. ... Read more

Product Description
Pursuant to special summons, a meeting of this Institution was held at St John's on the 12th day of January 1828; the Honourable A.W. Desbarres, Vice-Patron, in the chair. The Honourable Chairman stated, that the primary motive which led to the formation of the Institution, was the desire of opening a communication with, and promoting the civilization of, the Red Indians of Newfoundland; and of procuring, if possible, an authentic history of that unhappy race of people, in order that their language, customs and pursuits, might be contrasted with those of other tribes of Indians and nations;--that, in following up the chief object of the institution, it was anticipated that much information would be obtained respecting the natural productions of the island; the interior of which is less known than any other of the British possessions abroad. Their excellent President, keeping all these objects in view, had permitted nothing worthy of research to escape his scrutiny, and consequently a very wide field of information was now introduced to their notice, all apparently highly interesting and useful to society, if properly cultivated. He was aware of their very natural anxiety to hear from the president an outline of his recent expedition, and he would occupy their attention farther, only by observing, that the purposes of the present meeting would be best accomplished by taking into consideration the different subjects recommended to them in the president's report, and passing such resolutions as might be considered necessary to govern the future proceedings of the Institution.

The President, W.E. Cormack, Esq. then laid the following Statement before the meeting.

Having so recently returned, I will now only lay before you a brief outline of my expedition in search of the Boeothicks or Red Indians, confining my remarks exclusively to its primary object. A detailed report of the journey will be prepared, and submitted to the Institution, whenever I shall have leisure to arrange the other interesting materials which have been collected.

My party consisted of three Indians, whom I procured from among the other different tribes, viz. an intelligent and able man of the Abenakie tribe, from Canada; an elderly Mountaineer from Labrador; and an adventurous young Micmack, a native of this island, together with myself. It was difficult to obtain men fit for the purpose, and the trouble attending on this prevented my entering on the expedition a month earlier in the season. It was my intention to have commenced our search at White Bay, which is nearer the northern extremity of the island than where we did, and to have travelled southward; but the weather not permitting to carry my party thither by water, after several days delay, I unwillingly changed my line of route.

On the 31st of October 1828 [Sic: 30th of October 1827] last, we entered the country at the mouth of the River Exploits, on the north side, at what is called the Northern Arm. We took a north-westerly direction to lead us to Hall's Bay, which place we reached through an almost uninterrupted forest, over a hilly country, in eight days. This tract comprehends the country interior from New Bay, Badger Bay, Seal Bay, &c.; these being minor bays, included in Green or Notre Dame Bay, at the north-east part of the island, and well known to have been always heretofore the summer residence of the Red Indians.


Download Report Of Mr W.E.Cormack's Journey In Search Of The Red Indians In Newfoundland Now! ... Read more